In frictional matching markets with heterogeneous buyers and sellers, sellers incur discrete showing costs to show goods to buyers who incur discrete inspection costs to assess the suitability of the goods on offer. We study how brokers can help reduce these costs by managing the level and mix...

We construct and analyze a tractable search model of money with a non-degenerate distribution of money holdings. Analytical tractability comes from modeling decentralized exchange as directed search, which makes the monetary steady state block recursive. By adapting lattice-theoretic techniques,...

A committee decides by unanimity whether to accept the current alternative, or to continue costly search. Alternatives are described by several distinct attributes. Each committee member privately assesses the quality of one attribute (her \

In this paper I construct a search model of a large labor market in which workers are heterogeneous in productivity and (homogeneous) firms post wages and a ranking of workers to direct workers' search. I establish the following results. First, the wage differential is negatively related to...

In this article I briefly review recent developments in search theory. Particular attention is given to the framework of directed search. I first illustrate the inefficiency that arises in the equilibrium of standard (undirected) search models. Then I provide a formulation of directed search and...

We introduce heterogeneous preferences into a tractable model of monetary search to generate price dispersion, and then examine the effects of money growth on price dispersion and welfare. With buyers' search intensity fixed, we find that money growth increases the range of (real) prices and...

In this lecture, I explain what the microfoundations of money are about and why they are necessary for monetary economics. Then, I review recent developments of a particular microfoundation of money, commonly known as the search theory of money. Finally, I outline some unresolved issues.

In this paper we construct a two-country search model to determine the nominal exchange rate between two fiat monies. Our model allows agents to use any currency to trade for goods in all countries. However, search frictions restrict agents<92> opportunities for instantaneous arbitrage, and hence...</92>

In this paper we study the inefficiencies of the monetary equilibrium and optimal monetary policies in a search economy. We show that the same frictions that give fiat money a positive value generate an inefficient quantity of goods in each trade and an inefficient number of trades (or search...

We analyze bureaucracy and corruption in a market with decentralized exchange and <93>lemons.<94> Exchange is modelled as a sequence of bilateral, random matches. Agents have private information about the quality of goods they produce and can supplement trade with socially inefficient bribes....</94></93>